Yes, New Worlds Project welcomes teenagers aged 13 and upwards. However, for individuals not having reached the age of maturity, we ask for parental consent due to the New Worlds Project ASBL royalties programme and copyright implications.

Great news! Regular membership is free-to-use. Regular membership, however, does not grant you any right to vote and influence the New Worlds Project association and its future plans, so we always encourage members to join the Association as a premium member. It's also a great way to support the running costs of the New Worlds Project: Communities.

Premium membership is a low-cost annual paid subscription entitling you to become a full member of the New Worlds Project non-profit association. Annual fees are set at €24,00 per year. You can cancel your membership at any time, though the membership fees are not refundable.

By becoming a premium member you support the New Worlds Project: Communities and get a say in how New Worlds Project is run. So support New Worlds Project and become a premium member today!

New Worlds Project is operated by New Worlds Project ASBL, a Belgian non-profit association which complies with applicable European, and international laws governing data privacy, and copyright.

Unlike many collaborative writing sites, we operate a royalty programme for contributors on the basis of their contributions to the products we subsequently sell. In order to be able to operate our royalties programme, we require a contractual arrangement that gives us an exclusive license on your contributors, or in the case of collaborative projects, establishes New Worlds Project ASBL as the caretaker of the shared copyright.

We, in turn, provide you a license granting you the right to establish derivative works based on the New Worlds Project setting and we also grant you a license in perpetuity to use the work you provide to New Worlds Project for your own use in portfolios or to showcase to others the skills you've acquired whilst experiencing our 360⁰ creativity.

New Worlds Project's setting features 4 major factions (major powers) that hold the power to influence the course of history with the setting. For these factions, we offer a number of resources (tutorials and articles) that explains their back-story, and how to include them into your project so that the project is consistent with the other past, present, and future projects.

The major factions of New Worlds Project are:

Terran Democratic Republic

Gohorn Directorate

Rosebourg Monarchy

Luna Minoris Confederacy of Non-Aligned Worlds

If these factions don't suit your project, you're always welcome to create your own factions. You can contact any member of the Support Team to approve your project and have any content you produce for your species released as a site resource.

There are a number of requirements for your made-to-measure faction. In general, Support Team members will work to the following guidelines:

The faction should add value to your project and consequently New Worlds Project.

In general:

The factions may not be a major faction of the setting;

The faction may not have technology that is more advanced than the major species;

The faction may not have fleets of starships, or indeed balance of power changing abilities.

Indeed, it is preferable that the faction be part of one of the empires of the major factions to be fully consistent with the rest of the setting.

At New Worlds Project, we firmly believe that the quality of the project comes first and foremost. If you propose something that makes sense and will lead to a great project, the Support Team will be happy to review the idea with you and find the best compromise possible!

New Worlds Project's setting features 9 major alien species that hold the power to influence the course of history with the setting. For these species, we offer a number of resources (tutorials and articles) that explain who they are, what drives them as a species, and how to include them into your project so that the project is consistent with the other past, present, and future projects. There are also innumerable minor species to develop. They are:

Terrans

Gohorns

Navaks

Avrans

Taurii

L'nhraei

Dividians

Anacadans

Ventaars

If these species don't suit your project, you're always welcome to create your own species. You can contact any member of the Support Team to approve your project and have any content you produce for your species released as a site resource.

There are a number of requirements for your made-to-measure species. In general, Support Team members will work to the following guidelines:

The species should add value to your project and consequently New Worlds Project. In general:

The species may not be a major species of the setting;

The species may not have technology that is more advanced than the major species;

The species may not have fleets of starships, or indeed balance of power changing abilities.

Indeed, it is preferable that the species be part of one of the empires of the major species to be fully consistent with the rest of the setting.

At New Worlds Project, we firmly believe that the quality of the project comes first and foremost. If you propose something that makes sense and will lead to a great project, the Support Team will be happy to review the idea with you and find the best compromise possible!

Character sheets are found in the Knowledge Base. These are particularly useful for your major characters.

If you would like to add a character to our knowledge base, please proceed to your Content Manager found on the top right of the website navigation bar. Click on Add to Knowledge Base. Please fill out the sheet with the name of your character, and top-line details of your character. These will form the "meta-data" of your page.

We suggest adding our standard character block to begin your character sheet, although you can customise your own using our text and image blocks. You can add as many as you need.

When you are ready, click save and preview the page to make sure it looks the way you want it to. You can edit it as many times as you would like. Once you are ready for others to see your character sheet, you can manage your contributions using your Personal Content Manager and switch its status from draft to published.

As your character evolves, you may wish your biography to be updated with the latest adventures of your character. You can subsequently manage and edit your submitted Character Biography using your Personal Content Manager.

For minor characters, you are welcome to use these features, or you are welcome to simply add them to your story as you need them.

Submissions may be reviewed by a member of the Support Team for consistency but you’re welcome to use your character immediately after submitting your biography.

New Worlds Project also offers you the opportunity to commission artwork to represent your character. We offer the ability to commission a basic 2D sketch of your character, or a 3D model. Order your very own commission on ourNew Worlds Project: Shop.

The 360⁰ Creativity concept underpins all of our activities. New Worlds Project is a creative community built under the principles of fostering creativity using collaboration tools and projects. To achieve our objectives, we believe our role is to encourage creative people to dream, to create, to publish, and to start again.

New Worlds Project members are organised in project teams with distinct responsibilities to help complete projects’ 360⁰ Creativity cycle. We offer opportunities for our members to get involved in creative writing, conceptual graphic art, musical composition, editing, and community organising. Each team has a distinct role and you’re invited to join any of the project teams.

Of course! At New Worlds Project, we welcome individuals who wish to work by themselves. We call these projects: solo projects.

With solo projects, you can request a new project using your Personal Content Manager. Fill out the project request form outlining your project concept. Once we have received and studied your request, we will send you by e-mail a copy of the copyright license agreement which you will need to sign to allow you to use our setting but also enable us to edit, publish, and sell your project when it is concluded.

Once we're through the paperwork, we will create your project space on the New Worlds Project: Communities website and you will be able to add content to your solo project space using your Personal Content Manager.

For collaborative projects, we ask the Project Leaders to submit the first post so that they provide their preferred contact method for participants interested in becoming a project contributor.

If you are interested in joining a project, you can contact the Project Leader or contact a member of the Support Team to put you in touch with the Project Leader. If the Project Leader confirms s/he would like you to join the writing team, we will send you by e-mail a copy the copyright transfer agreement that needs to be signed. This ensures that should members drop out of the project team, that the participants and New Worlds Project ASBL can still conclude and adapt the project as necessary.

Once the copyright transfer agreement is signed, we will update your access rights to enable you to add to the shared project space of the collaborative project you intend to contribute to.

To be included in the annual anthologies, your 360⁰ Creativity project has to be finished by the 31st September of each year so that we have enough time to edit and publish the year’s anthology. We issue the anthology for the year usually in the first half of January of the following year.

For the 2016 season, the deadline is 31st September 2016with an expected publication of the 2016 Anthology sometime in January 2017.

That’s fantastic news! We’re always eager to hear from our members about new ideas that might be integrated into New Worlds Project. You can always add suggested additions to the setting directly to the Knowledge Base using your Personal Content Manager.

Graphics Team Members:

1. Request to join our elite Graphics Design Team

Contributing graphic artists may be invited to join a select group of graphic artists that form our in-house Graphics Design Team. This Graphics Design Team is an invitation-only group who execute high-priority paid commissions for the non-profit. The average commission ranges from €20 to €300 per project. Contact a member of the Support Team should you be interested in being included in our calls for proposals.

2. Join an existing collaborative or create a new solo or collaborative project:

You can also volunteer to the project by either joining an existing collaborative project (in which case please contact the project leader or a member of the Support Team who will assist you to find one), or you can request to create a new solo or collaborative project via 'My Content Manager' if you feel comfortable enough with the setting to start. You will need to sign a copyright license and/or transfer agreement. Once you have signed the agreement and been granted access to an existing project or your project space has been created, you will finally be ready to add to your project.

3. Add new content to your project:

To add new content to existing graphics team projects, simply create new content using 'My Content Manager' -> 'Add to Art Project' and selecting the project you wish to contribute to. We recommend using our standard 'Image Gallery block' for a single image gallery or 'Image Album block' for a page with multiple galleries for your contributions, but you are welcome to use any of the other text and image blocks as suits you.

4. Announce the completion of your project:

Once your project is completed, please announce it on the forums in the 'Creative Atelier -> Completed Projects' so that we can assign an editor to review and prep the product for inclusion in our Shop with you.

Creative Writing Team Members:

1. Add characters to the Knowledge Base:

Writers are invited to first create characters that will participate in collaborative projects. You can add as many characters as you wish to the Knowledge Base. Click on My Content Manager -> Add to Knowledge Base - > Select 'Characters' under project. Click on Go.

2. Define page meta details:

Add your character's name to the page title, a URL for your character (we suggest firstname-lastname), followed by a one-liner description of your character on the description. Please add to the keywords the name of your character, the species, and the job you intend your character to have to the page meta details.

3. Add your page's content blocks:

Once you have filled these details, click on 'Add Block'. Select the 'Character' Block (or any of the 'Text and Image' blocks if you wish to customise your page further) and click on 'Save' to add your page to our Knowledge Base. Your page can be previewed by yourself and members of our Support Team only at this stage as the page is automatically set to 'Draft'. It is always accessible and editable via your 'My Content Manager' -> 'Manage My Contributions'

4.Publish your page:

Once you are happy with your page, you will need to set its status to 'Published.' 'My Content Manager' -> 'Manage My Contributions' and click on the yellow 'Draft' next to your content page to set it to 'Published' mode. It will then be referenced in our Knowledge Base and accessible for some time on our front page.

5. Join an existing collaborative or create a new solo or collaborative project:

You will then need to either join an existing collaborative project (in which case please contact the project leader or a member of the Support Team who will assist you to find one), or you can request to create a new solo or collaborative project via 'My Content Manager' if you feel comfortable enough with the setting to start. You will need to sign a copyright license and/or transfer agreement. Once you have signed the agreement and been granted access to an existing project or your project space has been created, you will finally be ready to add to your project.

6. Add new content to your project:

To add new content to existing creative writing team projects, simply create new content using 'My Content Manager' -> 'Add to Writing Project' and selecting the project you wish to contribute to. We recommend using our standard 'Story' blocks for your contributions, but you are welcome to use any of the other text and image blocks as suits you.

7. Announce the completion of your project:

Once your project is completed, please announce it on the forums in the 'Creative Atelier -> Completed Projects' so that we can assign an editor to review and edit the story with you and get it primed for inclusion in our annual anthologies or released as its own piece of work.

New Worlds Project offers resources and tutorials located in the Resources tab. There are a number of articles which explain in greater detail the setting of New Worlds Project, as well as articles and video tutorials covering website features, tips, and practical advice on how to use our resources to achieve the best outcome for your project.

Don’t hesitate to ask your peers, a Project Leader, or members of the Support Team if you need any help or have questions, that’s what the community is for!

Editorial Team Members:

Editors are invited to claim projects on the forums to initiate an editing project in partnership with the contributors who completed the collaborative project. Editors wishing to claim a project simply must post a reply to one of the threads found in the 'Completed Projects' forum.

Music Team Members:

1. Join an existing collaborative or create a new solo or collaborative project:

You can also volunteer to the project by either joining an existing collaborative project (in which case please contact the project leader or a member of the Support Team who will assist you to find one), or you can request to create a new solo or collaborative project via 'My Content Manager' if you feel comfortable enough with the setting to start. You will need to sign a copyright license and/or transfer agreement. Once you have signed the agreement and been granted access to an existing project or your project space has been created, you will finally be ready to add to your project.

2. Add new content to your project:

To add new content to existing music team projects, simply create new content using 'My Content Manager' -> 'Add to Music Project' and selecting the project you wish to contribute to.

3. Announce the completion of your project:

Once your project is completed, please announce it on the forums in the 'Creative Atelier -> Completed Projects' so that we can assign an editor to review and prep the product for inclusion in our Shop with you.

Any regular or premium member can become a project leader of a collaborative project by submitting new project request using 'My Content Manager,' you can always get preliminary advice and solicit interest and support using our community channels like our forums, chat rooms, ChatBox, or Private Messenger .

It's a good idea to recruit a group of contributors to join you before you launch your collaborative project. Co-contributors' names can be included in your project proposal. All contributors will need to sign a copyright transfer agreement to protect the project and your joint contributions to it.

The Support Team will review the proposal for consistency before clearing the creation of the collaborative project and setting up the necessary project area as quickly as possible.

Recruit a stellar project group

As a project leader, your responsibilities are to recruit and keep your project group excited about your project outline.

Put together a project outline to help you finish the project you start

The project outline serves as a roadmap for your 360⁰ Creativity Project. If you modify your outline significantly, please contact a member of the Support Team if it is likely to impact the setting or create compatibility problems with the rest of the setting.

Manage the composition of your project group

As Project Leader you can accept or reject any applicants wishing to join the collaborative project. You decide how the story ends and how people participate.

Use our platforms to increase collaboration in your group

New Worlds Project provides you with a number of tools and platforms to collaborate with your project team and to showcase your project which you are welcome to use.

Use our resources to become a stellar leader

We also organise meetings and events to promote your work and to help you in your capacity as project leader. The Support Team is there to support you in any way you need. Don’t hesitate to contact us with questions, suggestions, or feedback.

Set the pace - get it finished in time for the September deadline!

You can set the pace of your project and have the challenge of getting your project concluded in time for the annual September deadline.

Submit your project proposal using 'My Content Manager'. You can contact the Support Team for approval updates. We aim to get projects approved as quickly as possible so that you don’t waste time waiting for us.

You're welcome to contact any registered member of New Worlds Project to invite them to join your project team. We recommend using our Private Messenger feature!

You can also post calls for Co-Contributors on our forums in the 'Creative Atelier', and feel free to post requests on our social media presences (links at the bottom of our website) where we get a lot of visitors, and don't forget to use our ChatBox and chat rooms to invite people to join your project team.

We also encourage you to invite contributors from outside of the New Worlds Project community to participate in your project! A great place to recruit people, for example, is RPG-Directory (for writers), DeviantArt (for Artists), or dedicated social media groups on Facebook and Google+.

Project leaders have full powers to accept or reject applicants to their project teams. Project leaders will be contacted by Support Team members by e-mail or private message if requests to join are received.

To accept a member, Project Leaders are invited to contact the Support Team providing the user name and if possible the e-mail address of the individual to be added to the project. We will handle the contractual aspects before adding the Contributor to your project team.

This ensures all team members to have access to the project space, and also the project team will be able to communicate with one another via private messages thereby increasing the quality of the project.

As Project Leader, one of your responsibilities is to project manage. Refer the members which are in conflict to the terms of service and invite them to resolve their differences in private. Be fair in your judgement and if you feel uncomfortable with the conflict feel free to ask for the aid of a Support Team Member.

Members are asked to refrain from posting as part of their projects scenes of excessive violence, horror, or graphic detail. Posting content with an acceptable level of violence or graphic detail (owing to the setting being in wartime) may be tolerated if it is properly justified, appropriate notices are placed for readers, and the Support Team is notified in advance. The creative project's quality and subject matter must be improved by the posting of said content, otherwise said content may be considered in violation of the terms of service. Content which may violate any applicable laws are not tolerated on New Worlds Project.

Users agree that all content posted to our operated websites are either the user's own-generated content, or is properly accredited to its original author. New Worlds Project ASBL will endeavour to remove any content posted on its website[s] that violate applicable intellectual property laws.

Only with prior authorisation. We invite members to take all measures to ensure their projects and content are in accordance with the setting materials available on the website under the resources tab. Members may not post material which inexplicably changes the balance of power without prior authorisation of the Support Team. Members may not post material which is unrealistic taking into account the limitations of the setting outlined in the resources.

Only with prior authorisation from the contributing member in the case of a character, or the Support Team in the case of a major change to the setting. You may not arbitrarily take and use another member’s content without their express permission, this includes taking a writing team member’s characters and terminating them.

Only with prior authorisation. Members are invited to take all measures to ensure their projects and content are in accordance with the setting materials available on the website under the resources tab. Members may not post material which inexplicably changes the balance of power without prior authorisation of the Support Team. Members may not post material which is unrealistic as regards the limitations of the setting outlined in the resources. Members agree to follow instructions from the Support Team when posted materials are said be inconsistent with pre-existing setting materials. Members may propose new content to be added to the Knowledge Base using 'My Content Manager.'

You can earn royalties by posting to a solo or collaborative project. Completed projects submitted in time for our September deadline will be considered for inclusion in the product range of New Worlds Project: Shop (and our distribution partners) for that year.

Depending on your role in the project, you are entitled to a fair share of the royalties. For collaborative projects, project leaders earn at least 35% of the total royalties available, whilst each of the other contributions earn a proportion of the remaining royalties always lower than the project leader's share. Solo project contributors receive the totality of royalties allocable for their project.

If the project is included in an anthology, each project is awarded a proportion of the royalties earned for that anthology, this is further divided for collaborative projects.

Depending on your role in the project, you are entitled to an amount of the royalties earned on the anthologies we sell that contain your contributions. Once a year, we will calculate the royalties earned through the inclusion of the story in the anthology.

We attribute a fixed 35% royalty for the project leader. New Worlds Project takes a fixed 20% overhead to cover the costs of the services.

Each remaining contributor is entitled to a share of the 45% remaining royalty. To define the share, we count the number of chapters created by the contributor and published to the website for the story. We tally up the number of chapters provided by the contributors [taking out those of the project leader] to identify how much of the remaining royalties each contributor is entitled to.

Collaborative project "Alpha Numeris" was completed with 21 chapters, of which 7 were written by the project leader, and the other 14 were written by 3 contributing writers. Writer A wrote 7 of the other chapters, Writer B wrote 4, and Writer C wrote 3. Based on our royalties programme's rules, Writer A is entitled to 50% of the remaining royalties (or 22.5% of the total, versus the project leader's 35%), Writer B is entitled to 28.5% (12.8% of the total), and Writer C is entitled to 21.4% (9.6% of the total).

New Worlds Project takes a 20% share on royalties for each revenue-generating project. Publishers can take up to 90% of your royalties so we feel we're offering a pretty good deal, and literary agents can often take up to an additional 10-15% on your remaining royalties!

Rest assured, as New Worlds Project ASBL is a non-profit, all revenue generated is redirected back into our community and is subject to the rigorous control of the New Worlds Project ASBL Board of Directors, the General Assembly (which you can join by becoming a Premium Member), and the Belgian Government. The overhead is generally used to finance:

Every project that is produced on New Worlds Project within the September deadline is incorporated into anthologies which are sold and promoted by New Worlds Project ASBL on behalf of the Contributors on New Worlds Project: Shop and with our distribution partners. Contributors are automatically eligible for our Royalties Scheme in accordance with the standard royalties breakdown for solo and collaborative projects approved by the New Worlds Project ASBL General Assembly.

New Worlds Project ASBL is the copyright claimant for New Worlds Project's Setting and offers a free limited license-to-use for Contributors to New Worlds Project: Communities for the purposes of creating derivative projects based on the setting.

Upon submission to the New Worlds Project: Communities, and signature of our Copyright License and Transfer Agreement, New Worlds Project ASBL becomes the copyright claimant for Collaborative Projects, and the exclusive license holder for Solo Projects (Solo Contributors retain their copyright).

In both cases, you benefit from a range of continued permitted uses including the right to include the project in your portfolio provided you credit New Worlds Project as your inspiration, the right to self-archive your pre-completed work, to re-use it in other publications so long as the publication is less than half of the used content, for education purposes, or in presentations.

New Worlds Project does not claim copyright to stories not using the New Worlds Project setting. However, you grant to New Worlds Project a perpetual right-to-use of any content you have submitted to New Worlds Project for inclusion in publications and promotional activities of the New Worlds Project ASBL.

In the 26th Century, faster-than-light travel across space is a fact of life. People travel in starships powered by vortex drives. 4 major powers are competing for dominance over the Milky Way Galaxy, and thousands of alien species live, work, and play together on the inhabited planets of the galaxy.

At the turn of the 26th Century, war has broken out. 100 years of peace administered by an Organisation for Interstellar Peace has been shattered.

Humans, united under the banner of the Terran Democratic Republic are one of the 4 major vying for power, supported by their allies the Rosebourgs. Their major competitors are the Gohorn Directorate, a militaristic power that has suffered from the century of peace, and the Luna Minoris Confederacy of Non-Aligned Worlds which is a slowly-integrating alliance of hundreds medium-sized and minor powers that were forced to come together to be able to weigh in in the Organisation for Interstellar Peace.

Humans have overcome a lot since the 21st century, but our very survival as a species is now at stake.